The voice of L J K Setright
Discussion
Breadvan72 said:
More dodgy self taught engineers: Wilbur and Orville Wright. Sydney Camm. There are several others.
However, I never thought LJKS's engineering 'comments' were particularly insightful or even well reasoned.He was an obviously intelligent bloke though, but I never thought of him as an engineer.
Breadvan72 said:
It depends. I know a few good ones. I don't have a law degree, by the way, but I got a job as a lawyer, and much of what I know (which isn't all that much) is self taught, on the job.
I knew about the lack of a law degree, you'd mentioned it before; kudos.I was having a laugh (oops) as I'm of an age that know/ and sadly knew, a few peeps that though not 'technically' qualified would astonish you with their working knowledge.
I had the privelidge to employ, in his retirement, Bert Whittle, Frank's younger brother. Simply, you can't buy that knowledge.
coppice said:
rosetank said:
It actually sounds like he was just totally arrogant to be honest? Credentials for driving achievements and Gods gift to automotive journalism; ‘scaring passengers’ ‘crashing various cars’ and ‘using Latin with over ripe prose’
Tragic. Must be a strict geek/generational thing?
Not for everyone , wasn't LJKS . That's what being sui generis does for a chap Tragic. Must be a strict geek/generational thing?
Breadvan72 said:
You must therefore regard Isambard Kingdom Brunel as rather dim and to be viewed with caution.
You may say that the use of language does not matter, but, as you attack Setright for his language, you could maybe try not to write in a randomly punctuated screed, such as your longer post above.
It sounds like you need to spend some time reading about Brunel You may say that the use of language does not matter, but, as you attack Setright for his language, you could maybe try not to write in a randomly punctuated screed, such as your longer post above.
And thanks for proving my point. If you felt it was a rant, then it’s easier to be straight and to the point. Rather than use language to wrap it up, whatever would have given you that idea one wonders......
And no, I’m not attacking this hack for anything, just commenting that I found his writing one self indulgent gigantic riddle which IMHO let the readers down. Personally I skipped his columns in Car, even at the time they appeared very much out of touch and from a completely different time?
Anyway no matter, plenty more authors which I do enjoy so one widely (weirdly in my view) regarded eccentric doesn’t make a difference
Plain language might not appeal to a lawyer, but it’s quite remarkable in getting a message across.
rosetank said:
It sounds like you need to spend some time reading about Brunel
And thanks for proving my point. If you felt it was a rant, then it’s easier to be straight and to the point. Rather than use language to wrap it up, whatever would have given you that idea one wonders......
And no, I’m not attacking this hack for anything, just commenting that I found his writing one self indulgent gigantic riddle which IMHO let the readers down. Personally I skipped his columns in Car, even at the time they appeared very much out of touch and from a completely different time?
Anyway no matter, plenty more authors which I do enjoy so one widely (weirdly in my view) regarded eccentric doesn’t make a difference
Plain language might not appeal to a lawyer, but it’s quite remarkable in getting a message across.
This rather makes the point. We all like different things. I can explain why I so enjoyed ljks writing but I cannot make another have my opinions, nor should I try.And thanks for proving my point. If you felt it was a rant, then it’s easier to be straight and to the point. Rather than use language to wrap it up, whatever would have given you that idea one wonders......
And no, I’m not attacking this hack for anything, just commenting that I found his writing one self indulgent gigantic riddle which IMHO let the readers down. Personally I skipped his columns in Car, even at the time they appeared very much out of touch and from a completely different time?
Anyway no matter, plenty more authors which I do enjoy so one widely (weirdly in my view) regarded eccentric doesn’t make a difference
Plain language might not appeal to a lawyer, but it’s quite remarkable in getting a message across.
I like and encourage plain language in legal contexts, but the world is poorer if there is no language without embellishment. Language can be quite plain but at the same time wonderful, as in the writing of Steinbeck and Hemingway, to give two examples. Have a look at the GP Car extracts above for Setright writing more plainly, but still well. There appears to be a persistent theme of anti-intellectualism in British life, and those who attack Setright's style seem to go along with the distrust of intellectuals, and of learning for its own sake. That strikes me as a negative and closed way of looking at things.
Brunel attended no university and had no degree. He learned from his father, and later learned on the job. The Wright brothers were the sons of a bishop, again without degrees in any subject. They ran a bike shop before they developed a successful aero engine and airframe, and solved the problem of lateral stability in flight (wing warping - later replaced by ailerons). Sydney Camm started as a woodworker, but went on to design the Hawker Hurricane. But if if you have not been a student of engineering, you are probably a dud, we are told above.
Brunel attended no university and had no degree. He learned from his father, and later learned on the job. The Wright brothers were the sons of a bishop, again without degrees in any subject. They ran a bike shop before they developed a successful aero engine and airframe, and solved the problem of lateral stability in flight (wing warping - later replaced by ailerons). Sydney Camm started as a woodworker, but went on to design the Hawker Hurricane. But if if you have not been a student of engineering, you are probably a dud, we are told above.
Breadvan72 said:
I like and encourage plain language in legal contexts, but the world is poorer if there is no language without embellishment. Language can be quite plain but at the same time wonderful, as in the writing of Steinbeck and Hemingway, to give two examples. Have a look at the GP Car extracts above for Setright writing more plainly, but still well. There appears to be a persistent theme of anti-intellectualism in British life, and those who attack Setright's style seem to go along with the distrust of intellectuals, and of learning for its own sake. That strikes me as a negative and closed way of looking at things.
Brunel attended no university and had no degree. He learned from his father, and later learned on the job. The Wright brothers were the sons of a bishop, again without degrees in any subject. They ran a bike shop before they developed a successful aero engine and airframe, and solved the problem of lateral stability in flight (wing warping - later replaced by ailerons). Sydney Camm started as a woodworker, but went on to design the Hawker Hurricane. But if if you have not been a student of engineering, you are probably a dud, we are told above.
It's an interesting take on things, but it'll be not much of a surprise to hear I don't agree on a couple of points. His father did mentor him from an early age and was a brilliant engineer himself, but to state he only learned 'on the job' is stretching things. He was apprenticed to Breguet and previously the College of Caen in Normandy and then Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. I'd wager that those gave him a fairly solid foundation, no degree was ever a stipulation for anybody? What I said was 'viewed with caution', not a 'dud' and we most definitely were not 'told above'. And as you know, this is relative to this particular journo, who wasn't an engineer at all, so if you could stop the somewhat tenuous links trying to make a point (a pointless one) that'd be great.Brunel attended no university and had no degree. He learned from his father, and later learned on the job. The Wright brothers were the sons of a bishop, again without degrees in any subject. They ran a bike shop before they developed a successful aero engine and airframe, and solved the problem of lateral stability in flight (wing warping - later replaced by ailerons). Sydney Camm started as a woodworker, but went on to design the Hawker Hurricane. But if if you have not been a student of engineering, you are probably a dud, we are told above.
And this is where the main issue is. if you are critical of pieces of work like the ones that Setright composed you are labelled, which is the way of certain people who are desperate to make others look like they are not educated. In fact the skill of language is the ability to convey things to everyone, not to be self indulgent and spend paragraphs weaving a web. My mistrust is of anybody who cannot clearly convey what they are trying to say and instead rely upon verbose statement, what are they hiding being the obvious question?
The core issue is this weird snobbery associated with any criticism, swiftly followed by some Latin. Having said all that I do have a muted respect for what he did. Along with the fact that he was very obviously an eccentric, and the world will never have enough of those. But no, his words on paper for me serve a purpose outside of education or learning and are just an example of what is wrong with some Journalists who get a little bit full of themselves
rosetank said:
It's an interesting take on things, but it'll be not much of a surprise to hear I don't agree on a couple of points. His father did mentor him from an early age and was a brilliant engineer himself, but to state he only learned 'on the job' is stretching things. He was apprenticed to Breguet and previously the College of Caen in Normandy and then Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. I'd wager that those gave him a fairly solid foundation, no degree was ever a stipulation for anybody? What I said was 'viewed with caution', not a 'dud' and we most definitely were not 'told above'. And as you know, this is relative to this particular journo, who wasn't an engineer at all, so if you could stop the somewhat tenuous links trying to make a point (a pointless one) that'd be great.
And this is where the main issue is. if you are critical of pieces of work like the ones that Setright composed you are labelled, which is the way of certain people who are desperate to make others look like they are not educated. In fact the skill of language is the ability to convey things to everyone, not to be self indulgent and spend paragraphs weaving a web. My mistrust is of anybody who cannot clearly convey what they are trying to say and instead rely upon verbose statement, what are they hiding being the obvious question?
The core issue is this weird snobbery associated with any criticism, swiftly followed by some Latin. Having said all that I do have a muted respect for what he did. Along with the fact that he was very obviously an eccentric, and the world will never have enough of those. But no, his words on paper for me serve a purpose outside of education or learning and are just an example of what is wrong with some Journalists who get a little bit full of themselves
Have you ever read any of his early books? I’d recommend “Some Unusual Engines” published by the IMechE.And this is where the main issue is. if you are critical of pieces of work like the ones that Setright composed you are labelled, which is the way of certain people who are desperate to make others look like they are not educated. In fact the skill of language is the ability to convey things to everyone, not to be self indulgent and spend paragraphs weaving a web. My mistrust is of anybody who cannot clearly convey what they are trying to say and instead rely upon verbose statement, what are they hiding being the obvious question?
The core issue is this weird snobbery associated with any criticism, swiftly followed by some Latin. Having said all that I do have a muted respect for what he did. Along with the fact that he was very obviously an eccentric, and the world will never have enough of those. But no, his words on paper for me serve a purpose outside of education or learning and are just an example of what is wrong with some Journalists who get a little bit full of themselves
rosetank said:
In fact the skill of language is the ability to convey things to everyone, not to be self indulgent and spend paragraphs weaving a web. My mistrust is of anybody who cannot clearly convey what they are trying to say and instead rely upon verbose statement, what are they hiding being the obvious question?
I agree, if we are talking about a technical manual, a scientific paper, a legal judgement, a letter of tax advice. Even a consumer review of a car, of the What Car or Which? variety. I think a columnist's job is different, though. Their job is to entertain as much as to inform.People have different tastes. I used to know someone who never read fiction. He didn't see the point.
Do you like poetry?
otolith said:
I agree, if we are talking about a technical manual, a scientific paper, a legal judgement, a letter of tax advice. Even a consumer review of a car, of the What Car or Which? variety. I think a columnist's job is different, though. Their job is to entertain as much as to inform.
People have different tastes. I used to know someone who never read fiction. He didn't see the point.
Do you like poetry?
I guess columnists are something I don’t follow very much, most if not all of his writing which I followed was in Car. People have different tastes. I used to know someone who never read fiction. He didn't see the point.
Do you like poetry?
Poetry, I never was but watched Gyles Brandreth some time ago and ordered his book which has an interesting selection.
Heaveho said:
I'm not an educated man, and I have little tolerance for many things, a large proportion of which I regularly describe as nonsense, but I found the outpourings of Setright genuinely fascinating. I was a teenager when I " discovered " him, and I remember him fondly.
I was a child when I first discovered him. I would frequently read his column last, needing at a tender age to gear up to it As I grew older, I found myself increasingly drawn to reading his first, and would be genuinely pleased if he had a feature in that edition.I can genuinely say that his passing from Car rather coincided with my being less and less interested in it. Green was no Cropley, later editors were even less equipped to fill those boots, and the progressive dumbing-down of the rag was a distressing thing to watch.
But then I still have my old editions, including the moment they moved from staple-binding to perfect binding, followed, a month or two later, by an irate correspondent to the Sir! pages complaining how the "perfect" binding's glue dissolved whilst he read in the bath!
Unfortunately they're in London whilst I'm right now in Yorkshire, so I can't while away my lockdown moments revisiting the good old days...
otolith said:
I agree, if we are talking about a technical manual, a scientific paper, a legal judgement, a letter of tax advice. Even a consumer review of a car, of the What Car or Which? variety. I think a columnist's job is different, though. Their job is to entertain as much as to inform.
People have different tastes. I used to know someone who never read fiction. He didn't see the point.
Do you like poetry?
I will confess to the odd haiku - but I'm not sure the public is quite ready for them ... People have different tastes. I used to know someone who never read fiction. He didn't see the point.
Do you like poetry?
I agree about the columnist's role - I certainly didn't read Clive James or AA Gill to find out what was good on telly , nor Jonathan Meades because I developed an interest in architecture . Nor Setright about my next car. I would rather read a Martin Amis on how to iron a shirt than the likes of Jeffery Archer on driving a LaFerrari ...
Good points!
I read Eizabeth David not for recipes, but for the joy of her writing about food and drink. Setright is a bit like Elizabeth David for cars and motorbikes.
All eccentrics are to some extent poseurs, and of course Setright was a poseur and a bit of a pseud, but he appears to have known this. His style of dress put him on the right side of the line between Dandy (good) and Fop (bad). His persona, and his writing style, were of course carefully cultivated, but at least he put effort into both. He didn't just spend one evening a year wearing a comedy waistcoat near the conductor at the Last Night of the Proms, or stand with a deeply unfunny made up name for a deeply unfunny joke political party at an election, as so many fake eccentrics do.
I read Eizabeth David not for recipes, but for the joy of her writing about food and drink. Setright is a bit like Elizabeth David for cars and motorbikes.
All eccentrics are to some extent poseurs, and of course Setright was a poseur and a bit of a pseud, but he appears to have known this. His style of dress put him on the right side of the line between Dandy (good) and Fop (bad). His persona, and his writing style, were of course carefully cultivated, but at least he put effort into both. He didn't just spend one evening a year wearing a comedy waistcoat near the conductor at the Last Night of the Proms, or stand with a deeply unfunny made up name for a deeply unfunny joke political party at an election, as so many fake eccentrics do.
Breadvan72 said:
Good points!
I read Eizabeth David not for recipes, but for the joy of her writing about food and drink. Setright is a bit like Elizabeth David for cars and motorbikes.
All eccentrics are to some extent poseurs, and of course Setright was a poseur and a bit of a pseud, but he appears to have known this. His style of dress put him on the right side of the line between Dandy (good) and Fop (bad). His persona, and his writing style, were of course carefully cultivated, but at least he put effort into both. He didn't just spend one evening a year wearing a comedy waistcoat near the conductor at the Last Night of the Proms, or stand with a deeply unfunny made up name for a deeply unfunny joke political party at an election, as so many fake eccentrics do.
I'd say it's self styled eccentrics that are posers, real eccentrics think they are the one sane person in a world of lunatics. But LJKS was certainly in the former categoryI read Eizabeth David not for recipes, but for the joy of her writing about food and drink. Setright is a bit like Elizabeth David for cars and motorbikes.
All eccentrics are to some extent poseurs, and of course Setright was a poseur and a bit of a pseud, but he appears to have known this. His style of dress put him on the right side of the line between Dandy (good) and Fop (bad). His persona, and his writing style, were of course carefully cultivated, but at least he put effort into both. He didn't just spend one evening a year wearing a comedy waistcoat near the conductor at the Last Night of the Proms, or stand with a deeply unfunny made up name for a deeply unfunny joke political party at an election, as so many fake eccentrics do.
As a teenager, I did not appreciate LJKS. There were always 4-5 words that I did not understand, and two of those would not even be in my pocket dictionary. I would still read them.
I thought I was fairly clever, having got into medical school, when I read an article by LJKS commenting on how a gentleman's tailored trousers should rest on the cuneiform. I had just learnt what a cuneiform bone was during lectures that week and was astounded that a car journalist would actually know. I reread some of his articles and concluded that he assumed his reader was intelligent and "knew the mathematical difference between velocity and acceleration". Had I paid more attention to his articles, I'm sure I would have got better English grades.
I thought I was fairly clever, having got into medical school, when I read an article by LJKS commenting on how a gentleman's tailored trousers should rest on the cuneiform. I had just learnt what a cuneiform bone was during lectures that week and was astounded that a car journalist would actually know. I reread some of his articles and concluded that he assumed his reader was intelligent and "knew the mathematical difference between velocity and acceleration". Had I paid more attention to his articles, I'm sure I would have got better English grades.
wong said:
As a teenager, I did not appreciate LJKS. There were always 4-5 words that I did not understand, and two of those would not even be in my pocket dictionary. I would still read them.
I thought I was fairly clever, having got into medical school, when I read an article by LJKS commenting on how a gentleman's tailored trousers should rest on the cuneiform. I had just learnt what a cuneiform bone was during lectures that week and was astounded that a car journalist would actually know. I reread some of his articles and concluded that he assumed his reader was intelligent and "knew the mathematical difference between velocity and acceleration". Had I paid more attention to his articles, I'm sure I would have got better English grades.
Lol. It is probably safe to admit after 30 years that I got an engineering placement at Shell in part by quoting more-or-less verbatim a part of an LJKS treatise about Citroen suspension I thought I was fairly clever, having got into medical school, when I read an article by LJKS commenting on how a gentleman's tailored trousers should rest on the cuneiform. I had just learnt what a cuneiform bone was during lectures that week and was astounded that a car journalist would actually know. I reread some of his articles and concluded that he assumed his reader was intelligent and "knew the mathematical difference between velocity and acceleration". Had I paid more attention to his articles, I'm sure I would have got better English grades.
wong said:
As a teenager, I did not appreciate LJKS. There were always 4-5 words that I did not understand, and two of those would not even be in my pocket dictionary. I would still read them.
I thought I was fairly clever, having got into medical school, when I read an article by LJKS commenting on how a gentleman's tailored trousers should rest on the cuneiform. I had just learnt what a cuneiform bone was during lectures that week and was astounded that a car journalist would actually know. I reread some of his articles and concluded that he assumed his reader was intelligent and "knew the mathematical difference between velocity and acceleration". Had I paid more attention to his articles, I'm sure I would have got better English grades.
They're mathematically different only in that acceleration is the rate of change of velocity - is that a 'mathematical' difference? I wonder if he meant the "difference between velocity and speed"; velocity being a vector and speed being a scalar, but often used interchangeably.I thought I was fairly clever, having got into medical school, when I read an article by LJKS commenting on how a gentleman's tailored trousers should rest on the cuneiform. I had just learnt what a cuneiform bone was during lectures that week and was astounded that a car journalist would actually know. I reread some of his articles and concluded that he assumed his reader was intelligent and "knew the mathematical difference between velocity and acceleration". Had I paid more attention to his articles, I'm sure I would have got better English grades.
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